For a month or two I have been bidding on some Ebay Chinese temperature con trollers. See item 331003208004. I was not in any hurry so just kept biddi ng at a low amount until I finally got one. That did not make it super che ap because the seller had a $15 shipping charge. There are cheaper tempera ture controllers on Ebay, but they are limited to 400 degrees C. And I am planning on using this for multiple things. One is a toaster oven for surf ace mount soldering. Using a temperature controller for this is over kill, but if you have it why not. The cheaper controls would work for this.
A second use will be an egg incubator. Again the cheaper controller will w ork well for this.
And the third use is for heat treating parts. So this is on topic for meta lworking.
And one possible other use is making steatite parts. From Wiki.
Soapstone is often used as an insulator or housing for electrical componen ts, due to its durability and electrical characteristics and because it can be pressed into complex shapes before firing. Soapstone undergoes transfor mations when heated to temperatures of 1000?1200 °C into enstatite and cristobalite; in the Mohs scale, this corresponds to an increase in hardnes s to 5.5?6.5.[
So you can buy soapstone and carve it into whatever shape you want and then fire it. Or possibly buy talcum powder, mold it to the shape you want and fire it.
Dan